


we're giants in a little man's world

by thecryoftheseagulls



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Angst and Feels, Blade of Marmora Keith (Voltron), Galra Growth Spurt Keith, Galra Keith (Voltron), Gay Disaster Shiro (Voltron), Gender-Neutral Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Height Differences, In Which Keith Goes Through A Second Galra Puberty Of Sorts And Ends Up Taller Than Shiro, M/M, Panic Attacks, Pining Shiro (Voltron), Role Reversal, Sharing a Bed, Shiro Wants To Be The Little Spoon In This Relationship, Shiro: him...him big, Thirsty Shiro, black holes, not season 6 compliant, tall Keith, time dilation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-25
Updated: 2018-11-04
Packaged: 2019-05-13 14:10:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 13,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14750369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecryoftheseagulls/pseuds/thecryoftheseagulls
Summary: Shiro and the rest of the currents Paladins lose some time, thanks to the distortion of a black hole. When they re-emerge, they find a Blade of Marmora Keith...not quite the same.At first, Shiro thinks the Blade is a woman -- they’re taller, probably, than Shiro himself, but leaner, like the female Blades and Galra soldiers Shiro has seen. But then he gets a better glimpse as they plant a foot on the thigh of the Galra facing them, run up the Galra’s body and kick the Galra in the face. Shiro can see the width of the Blade’s shoulders (as wide as his own, maybe more) as he drops to the ground again, the taper from his shoulders to an impossibly thin waist, the strength in his thighs as he leaps up and springboards off the wall, landing with his legs around the Garla’s neck and twisting sharply.....Shiro takes a step closer.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [arahir](https://archiveofourown.org/users/arahir/gifts), [wrecked_anon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wrecked_anon/gifts).



> So, due credit: The original idea for this fic came from[ this post](http://arahir.tumblr.com/post/172810046615/here-people-are-asking-romantic-shit-like-how) (which then spawned [ this preview](http://arahir.tumblr.com/post/173279478585/post-galra-puberty-keith-i-guess-shiro-wont-love) and then [ this art](https://gitwrecked.tumblr.com/post/173196493070/theres-a-post-i-saw-somewhere-about-keith-having) and finally [this art](https://gitwrecked.tumblr.com/post/173274864800/the-first-of-what-i-hope-are-many-art-trades-with)). [Arahir](http://arahir.tumblr.com/) provided the basic idea, [git-wrecked](https://gitwrecked.tumblr.com/) provided the inspo, and then I just took this whole concept of galra growth spurt Keith and ran with a mid-series version of it. Honestly this whole thing has entirely spiraled out of control, but I ain't even mad, bro.

The lost time happens like this:

The Paladins are all asleep during the ship’s night cycle when the castle gets a distress call from a nearby star system. There’s a merchant vessel under attack by a rogue Galra cruiser, and they’re calling for aid.

Coran wakes everyone and they portal to the system to assist.

This is where it gets dicey, because the system is a binary one, a red dwarf orbiting a literal black hole, and Shiro is _pretty_ skeptical about battling a cruiser so close to a black hole, but there are civilians in danger, and they don’t have a choice. They send out the Lions.

A single cruiser is not an especially difficult challenge at this point; they don’t even try to form Voltron. But the cruiser keeps leading them closer and closer to the black hole, until Shiro is sweating into the lining of his helmet and muting his comms to curse and darting after it alone, ordering the others to keep back as the Black Lion leaps forwards and scrapes its claws all down the side of the enemy vessel. Black rips the hull open and exposes it to space, explosions detonating all down the hull-break they’ve just created. Shiro reverses, fast as Black can go, but his last hit seems good enough to send the cruiser spinning out of control past what he presumes is the black hole’s event horizon. It doesn’t flatten, or get torn apart, but the closer and closer it gets to the singularity, the slower the cruiser seems to move. Shiro watches it for several long minutes, and then he turns around and speeds back to the other Paladins.

It takes about two dobashes to make it back to the Green Lion, by Shiro’s count.

Pidge says, “Quiznak, two vargas later,” and they’re not joking, which is about when Shiro starts to realize that they may have escaped the black hole’s event horizon, but they haven’t escaped the time dilation surrounding it.

The other three Lions are clustered not a very great distance away, and it feels like no time at all for Shiro and Pidge to reach them, but then Allura says that they watched Green and Black approach for three quintents.

Shiro sweats.

When they make it back to the castle, they have to wake Coran up from the cryopod.

“Oh! Good! You made it back,” he says, when Allura helps him stand up straight. “I’ve been watching you coming for a long time. Got kind of boring after a while. Thought I’d get some shut-eye and pop out to see how much closer you’d approached every few spicolian movements. And look, here you are! Wonderful!”

Shiro sweats. 

They portal out of the system, all of them eager to be as far away from the black hole as possible. 

Back where they started in the Dek system (a nice normal planetary system with two inhabited worlds), they get _another_ distress call. Everyone groans.

“We’re gonna, ignore that, right? We just spent, like, who even knows how much time trapped in the distortion of a black hole,” Hunk says.

“There are people who need help, and we’re right here. You guys know the drill. Once more unto the breach,” Shiro says, smiling lightly to offset the reprimand. This is the Black Paladin’s job description, after all -- leading and encouraging the rest of Voltron to do the right thing.

Privately, though, Shiro agrees with Hunk. He’d like some time for Pidge and Hunk and Coran to figure out exactly how long they were stuck by that black hole. And some time to himself to freak out being stuck for an unknown quantity of time, _without Keith_. He's left Keith behind before, more than once, and it never gets easier, even if this time the separation was Keith's choice and not Shiro's. Time...it's a sticky point for Shiro. He thinks about it too much, the way time marches inexorably onwards, leaving Shiro always scrabbling to keep up, to stay ahead, to accomplish his dreams before time runs out for him.

It's always been Shiro's enemy, time. Whatever Haggar and her druids did to him while he was a captive has stopped his muscles' slow decay, but it's hard to shake the mindset that he needs to plan his life in terms of days and months, not years, hard to conceptualize a life beyond this step and the next step and the step after that in this war. Shiro can't shake the sense of urgency he feels when he thinks about Keith, gone off with the Blade of Marmora. Keith's absence weighs on him, an itch in the back of his mind, a tick-tick-tick of a celestial clock that says if anything can go wrong, it will go wrong, and god, Shiro wants Keith's certainty that everything will be all right, that Shiro will be fine and Keith will be fine, and they will come back together and see each other again, but Shiro -- Shiro has never had that certainty.

And now this, a black hole. How long were they even stuck there, isolated from the rest of the universe and out of reach of anyone who needed Voltron's aid? Weeks? Months?What’s happening with the Resistance? Where is Keith now?

“Okay but I want some actual shore leave after this,” Lance is complaining, as they troop back to their hangars and launch the Lions towards the moon base just off Qatis, one of the inhabited planets where the signal originates.

When they get there, the docking area is shot to hell, and Pidge has to override the bay doors in order to get them shut and get oxygen back into this part of the base. They park the Lions and continue on foot.

Inside, they follow the blinking aquamarine of the emergency lights down a long corridor, bayards at the ready. It's quiet, at first, though the walls are seared from laser rifle fire. They find a body, an amphibious-looking humanoid. Qatisian. Allura checks the corpse, then shakes her head.

They move deeper.

At the next intersection, the hall splits three ways, and there are more bodies. Except this time there's two dead Galra soldiers in with three Qatisian scientists. One Galra has been stabbed in the back, the other's throat cut.

“Guys,” Pidge says, as they roll the backstabbed Galra over with their boot, their bayard giving off a faint hum which means Pidge has the electrical charge keyed up. “I don't think we're alone.”

“Blades, maybe.” Shiro squats down to inspect the Galra's wounds. There's a murmur of agreement from the group and then a loud metallic clang sounds from the hallway farthest to the left. Shiro stands, looks at the others, and nods. They go that way.

As they approach, the noises continue, getting gradually louder. It’s obviously some kind of scuffle; Shiro can pick out grunts and soft thuds and the occasional rasp of metal on metal or the whine of a laser rifle firing. It’s quiet, though, much quieter than the Paladins usually fight, and that more than the stab wounds on the previous dead Galra convinces Shiro that the Blade of Marmora beat them here. He signals to the group to keep quiet, with mixed results; Hunk is not made for stealth; he breathes too loud and has footfalls too heavy. He tries, though, Shiro gives him that.

The hall curves, instead of turns a corner, which isn’t ideal for sneaking. Shiro holds up a hand and the other Paladins come to a stop behind him. He creeps forward, right arm lighting up with the purple glow of quintessence even as the bayard in his left hand lengthens into a katana. He glimpses a flash of movement, blue-black, as he steps forward, keeping close to the wall to make himself less noticeable. When he can finally see what’s happening -- or rather, _who_ \-- Shiro stops in his tracks.

There’s a single Blade facing down what was six Galra soldiers, with three already on the ground, probably dead. At first, Shiro thinks the Blade is a woman -- they’re taller, probably, than Shiro himself, but leaner, like the female Blades and Galra soldiers Shiro has seen. But then he gets a better glimpse as they plant a foot on the thigh of the Galra facing them, run up the Galra’s body and kick the Galra in the face. Shiro can see the width of the Blade’s shoulders (as wide as his own, maybe more) as he drops to the ground again, the taper from his shoulders to an impossibly thin waist, the strength in his thighs as he leaps up and springboards off the wall, landing with his legs around the Garla’s neck and twisting sharply to snap the Galra’s neck. He rides the twitching body to the ground, and Shiro’s heart is in his throat as one of the two remaining soldiers swings the butt of their laser rifle right at the Blade’s head as he lands on his knees. But the Blade drops backwards just in time, laying flat against his heels, and the blow carries through where his head just was, missing him. He brings the blade in his right hand up in an arc, slicing into the weak point in the Galra’s armor where two pieces connect at the elbow, and the Galra drops the rifle and howls in pain. The Blade rolls to the side to avoid the dropped gun, and Shiro takes a step closer, not that the Blade seems to need his help, but that he can’t tear his eyes away from play of muscle under the black armor that stretches across his frame, the waist-to-shoulders ratio he has going on, the way he kick flips to his feet and charges at the injured Galra. 

God, _god_ , Shiro thinks, staring dry-mouthed at the frankly obscene concave to the Blade’s waist below his ribcage. He wants to put his hands there and grip tight, like the Blade’s waist is a handhold made just for him, and this is _so_ not the time to be thinking about the shape of a stranger’s abdomen, but damn, how can Shiro resist when the Blade cuts through the Galra he’s already injured like the broader soldier is made of butter. A few quick jabs and a block and the second Galra hits the ground with a thud. The Blade lowers his weapon slightly and stares down the final soldier with Galra blood dripping from his blade, that hood thing that they wear whipping majestically around his mask from some breeze from the air vents, and five dead Galra on the floor at his feet, and god, Shiro has no idea who he is but he would die for him.

The last Galra falls back a step, uncertain, and that’s when she sees Shiro, and a maniacal gleam lights up her yellow eyes as recognition flashes across her face. She brings the laser rifle in her hands up to her shoulder and aims it at Shiro, and Shiro prepares to duck out of the way when the Blade looks over his shoulder and freezes. But he only freezes for a tick before he's lunging forward, grabbing the barrel of the rifle with both hands and wrestling it so it points at the ground. He drop-kicks the Galra in the face, wrenches the rifle from her hands and shoots her with it, and that all happens so fast that Shiro nearly misses it, because it’s right then that the rest of the Paladins give up on waiting for his signal and round the curve in the hall. Lance sees the Galra taking aim and shoves Shiro against the wall, but Shiro still can’t stop looking at the way the Blade moves, the flurry of movement he unleashes against the last soldier as soon as he catches sight of Shiro behind him. There’s a fury to it that the grace of his earlier attacks can’t match, a brutality to the way the Blade points the rifle right at the last Galra’s face and shoots her without flinching.

“Shiro, what are you doing?” Lance hisses, and Shiro swallows around his dry mouth and tears his gaze away to look at his team.

“He didn’t look like he needed any help,” he says, lamely.

“No sh--,” Pidge starts, only to be interrupted when Hunk claps a large hand over their mouth.

“Language,” Hunk says, affronted. “There are _children here_ , Pidge.”

“Yeah, me, asshole,” Pidge says, smacking his hand away with a grin. Hunk puts a hand over his heart dramatically.

“Okay, team,” Shiro says, rolling his eyes and pushing himself off the wall. His bayard shrinks. He pats Lance on the shoulder in thanks and takes a step towards the Blade, who is still fifteen feet down the hall from them all. He’s sticking his blade in a couple of the Galra’s chests for good measure, in a way that Shiro thinks looks...deliberately busy, like he’s avoiding acknowledging the Paladins.

Finally, he straightens and looks in their direction. He wipes off his blade on his sleeve, shrinks it down to dagger size, and sheathes it at the small of his back, then folds his arms over his chest and stares down the hall at them.

Shiro cannot get over how beautiful the guy’s proportions are, and he hasn’t even seen his face. He has long hair worn in a braid wrapped around his neck and pinned in place, to keep it out of the way while he’s fighting, Shiro notices now. It’s identical to the way Kolivan wears his hair, but this Blade’s hair is black instead of gray.

“Hi,” Shiro says, approaching him slowly. “That was -- that was a good fight.”

The Blade snorts, and it occurs to Shiro, like a bucket of ice water over the head, to wonder what the hell has come over him. Why is he lusting over the waistline of an unknown Galra in a scientific base on an unnamed moon off the planet Qatis after he and almost his whole team just spent an as yet uncertain amount of time trapped in the time dilation of a black hole? He has got better shit to do with his time, like, for instance, finding out where the fuck Keith is and how long Keith has been alone, which, incidentally, this Blade might be able to help with. God, Shiro is a disloyal bastard, he thinks, resolving to focus on the task at hand, and the task at hand only.

And then the Blade reaches up and touches the side of his mask to activate his communication device, and Keith’s voice says,

“Kolivan. I’ve found Voltron.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woo, new chapter in a timely fashion! This chapter's shorter than I originally intended it to be, because I decided I'd rather post an update soon than wait to post a long chapter. Also, I'm really really floored by the positive reaction this fic has gotten already - I've been watching the hits and the kudos and the subscriptions all get higher and higher in the week since I posted the first chapter, and I'm still kind of in shock. Thank you all!!! <3 <3

“K-keith?” Shiro falters. He’s close, now, close enough to gauge the difference in their heights accurately, and this Blade is both half a foot taller than Shiro and broader in the shoulders. It’s a fairly normal height for Galra, really -- Shiro has seen Galra that are taller, but this Blade is lean where the standard Galra is rock-solid. His hands, as he reaches up to flick off his hood, are _huge_.

Shiro’s team crowd up behind him.

“Did you just call him Keith?” Lance laughs, appearing at Shiro’s shoulder “Dude, you did spend too long by that black hole.” He faces forward to address the Blade. “Sorry about our fearless leader here, he gets antsy when he doesn’t see Keith for too long, starts mistaking every--”

“Uh, Lance,” Hunk interrupts, as the Blade’s mask crackles and fades away.

Keith’s face stares back at them, pale and sweaty. He’s got a purple Galra facemark on his right cheek, and his hair is long, strands of it coming undone from his braid and sticking to his forehead and cheeks.

“Holy shit,” Pidge says.

A holographic display of Kolivan’s face pops up over Keith’s vambrace. He says, simply,

“Bring them home, Keith.”

“Yes, sir,” Keith says, and the hologram winks out.

“Keith,” Shiro says, helplessly. He stares, tries to ignore the absurd little pang of jealousy he feels at hearing Keith say that phrase to anyone but himself. _Yes, sir._ Keith stares back at him, and Shiro can’t read his face, can’t tell what he’s thinking, can’t stop staring at the Galra mark on his cheek.

“Keith, whatever has happened?” Allura asks, for all of them.

Keith sighs, his massive shoulders slumping. He reaches up to his neck and does something to the braid there so it hangs loose over his shoulder.

“I assume you guys got the same distress call we did,” he says, and his voice is just the tiniest shade deeper than it used to be, almost unnoticeable, really; it was already so deep to begin with.

Shiro notices.

“That was the last of them,” Keith says, motioning at the Galra bodies on the floor. He touches his vambrace, and another hologram appears, this time two blue Qatisian faces looking back at him. “The base is secure, Heklar.”

“You have our unending gratitude, sir,” one of the Qatisians says. “Tell Kolivan we owe the Blade of Marmora a debt.”

Keith nods shortly and cuts the connection off. He looks back up at the Paladins.

“Kolivan wants to see you,” Keith says, after a lengthy pause where they all just stare at each other. “Let’s talk about this at base. Is the castle nearby? I’ll send you the coordinates.” He starts picking his way over the bodies and moves to walk past them.

Shiro grabs his arm, disconcerted when his hand doesn’t span the width of Keith’s bicep anymore. 

Keith tenses.

This close, Shiro has to tilt his chin back to look Keith in the eye. If he'd had time to predict his reaction, Shiro would've thought he was going to feel weird about that, but when Keith looks down and his expression goes soft as soon as he meets Shiro’s gaze, Shiro feels gut-punched -- a good gut-punch, though, something like wonder and, curiously, _want_ making his throat close up. Keith sighs, pulls Shiro in for a hug, and Shiro’s positively surrounded by Keith’s strong arms and muscled chest under the tight Blade armor. God, he’s warm and solid and here, and Shiro can’t remember ever feeling so fucking safe in his entire life. He makes a noise, involuntarily, and Shiro doesn't know what the hell that noise was but maybe it was kind of a whimper? 

It doesn't matter, because Keith is tightening those big arms around him in response, holding Shiro impossibly closer.

The hug feels like it only lasts a tick before Keith is pulling away again, squeezing Shiro’s shoulder and saying,

“We’ll talk soon, Shiro.” Then he walks away, back towards the hangar bay.

Nobody else moves for at least a dobash, except Pidge, and that’s only to whistle and look between Shiro’s face, which probably looks as gutted as he feels, and Keith’s retreating back.

“Damn,” they say. “Did he just - yep, he totally did. Okay. That happened.”

“It appears he means us to follow him,” Allura says. 

Hunk shrugs, and starts walking, and everyone else follows him, except Lance, who still looks stunned. 

“Are we not going to talk about the fact that Keith is apparently a giant now?” Lance says after a tick, breaking into a half-jog to keep up.

“What’s there to talk about?” Pidge asks. “Obviously it’s a Galra thing.”

“Okay, but last I checked, Keith was basically human? Like I know he’s _part_ Galra, but he’s - he’s - he’s really tall now! What the quiznak!” Lance says.

“We’ve clearly been gone for some time,” Allura says, her voice grim.

Hunk darts a look at Shiro’s face at that and then he whispers, “Crap.”

*******

“Come in, Princess,” Coran’s voice says over the comms, as they reach the hangar again.

“We read you, Coran,” Allura says.

“I’m getting some kind of interstellar coordinates in an incoming transmission?” Coran asks, his voice lilting up in question.

Allura glances at Shiro, but Shiro, still a bit dazed, doesn’t react.

“It appears the Blade of Marmora heard the Qatisian’s distress call before we did, Coran,” Allura says. “They sent Keith. He’d like us to follow him back to the Blade’s base so we can meet with Kolivan.”

“Oh!” Coran says. “These aren’t the coordinates for any base of theirs we’ve been to before, that’s why I didn’t recognize them. Right-o. I’ll plot a course, then.”

The Paladins pick their way past the wreckage in the hangar. As Shiro approaches, the Black Lion drops his jaw, ready for Shiro to make his way up into the cockpit, but before he can do that, a Galra fighter purrs to life just across the hangar. It’s the only Galra ship in the hangar that appears to be intact, a small and aggressively agile-looking fighter, and most notably, it’s painted candy-apple red, with the symbol of the Blade of Marmora in black along the side. The engine on the back doesn’t look standard either; it’s larger and more powerful than Shiro usually sees on single-person fighters, which Shiro suspects means it’s capable of intersystem travel on its own, without the assistance of a battleship to house it. The red ship hums beautifully as it idles, and Shiro can’t make out Keith in the cockpit from here, but everything about the ship screams that it’s Keith’s baby. He lifts a hand in acknowledgement, sure that Keith can see him, and the engine revs a little louder in response. 

Shiro shivers, and turns back to Black.

When Shiro and the rest of his team are inside their Lions, Pidge activates the hangar doors remotely and the hangar depressurizes. Keith’s red fighter is the first one out, quick and smooth as it zips out into the moon’s nonexistent atmosphere.

*******

Shiro is surprised to find that not only is the Blade of Marmora base one Voltron has never heard of before, it’s not a hidden base, either. It’s a space station, out in the open in orbit around a gas giant, and it’s significantly larger than the entire asteroid that housed the headquarters where Shiro and Keith met Kolivan originally.

“Uh…” Pidge says, looking out the observation windows in the castle’s control room at the station, which is shaped rather like a Mexican spinning top. “Are we in the right place? This doesn’t look like a Blade of Marmora station.”

“Princess, we're being hailed,” Coran reports.

“Put them through, Coran,” Allura says.

“Viden Station, this is Crimson Blade on approach,” Keith’s voice says, crackling slightly as he opens up a connection between Voltron and the base.

“Welcome back, General,” a smooth female voice answers. “I trust your mission was a success?”

“Commander Ladnok and her forces won't be bothering Qatis’s scientists again anytime soon,” Keith says, and even over comms like this, Shiro can hear the note of pride in his voice.

“Very good, General. I see the rumors you’re accompanied by the Paladins of Voltron have not been exaggerated.”

“No,” Keith agrees, his voice going cool again. “I'm going to need a class-A port for the Castle of Lions.”

“Opening Gate 5-B. Proceed to dock in two dobashes, sir.”

“Thanks, Kroz,” Keith says. “Coran, I’m sending the docking instructions to you. That gate’s on the opposite side of the base from our fighter hangars, so you’ll need to guide her in on your own.”

“It’ll only take a tick,” Coran agrees cheerfully.

Keith peels off and heads lower, towards a pair of hangar doors near the bottom of the station that are slowly opening, while Coran steers the castle ship around the far side of the station, where a port is opening to allow a long gangway to extend out into space. There's a few moments of silence as they latch on, and then Coran fiddles with his instruments and says,

“There we are, we’ve docked at,” he checks his screen, “Viden Station, Princess.”

Allura has joined Pidge at the windows to stare out at the base, her arms folded over her chest. She looks back at Shiro.

“Something about this doesn’t feel right,” Allura says.

“Uh, maybe it’s the fact that the Blade have a huge-ass base, like, in the middle of open space for everyone to see?” Pidge shoots back. “I scanned the base as we were coming in and listen, they are _not_ trying to hide. There’s no cloaking technology in use anywhere.”

“ _Better_ question,” Lance interrupts. “Did everybody else hear that station controller call Keith a General? Or am I just imagining things?”

“You’re not imagining things,” Shiro says.

“ _Thank_ you,” Lance says. “Because I was wondering--”

“It’s still Keith,” Shiro says. “We can trust him.” Allura nods, and Shiro looks around at the Paladins. “All right, team,” he says. “I’d tell you to suit up, but honestly I’m not sure when exactly any of us last got to wear civvies.”

A round of groans from his still-armored team greets this statement.

Shiro grins, although the expression feels forced. He needs to see Keith, see if -- see what is happening there. Really talk to him. Everything else...feels far off, like it’s on the other side of a glass wall from Shiro and his driving need to check in with Keith.

“Coran, I’m not sure what intel we’re going to get about the time we spent near that black hole, so I’d appreciate it if you came with on this one,” Shiro says.

“Of course, of course,” Coran says. “Tell you the truth, I’m eager to stretch my legs a bit after that time in cryo. Get the ole kinks out.” He cracks his back audibly, and Shiro winces.

“Right,” Shiro says, and the team piles into the elevator to make their way off-ship.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a lot less edited than y'all deserve, but is that gonna stop me from posting it? NOPE.
> 
> anyways i just wanna say: I'M SORRY SHIRO

When they disembark, they’re met on the gangway by a masked Blade. She bows when she sees them.

“Vedet sa!” she says crisply, crossing her right arm over her chest in a Galra salute as she straightens. “I am Blade Pretok.”

The armor she's wearing, Shiro notes, is clearly Blade armor, dark and form-fitting like Keith’s and that of all the other Blades they've met so far. But subtle changes have been made to it - the breastplate, greaves, and vambraces are bulkier, reinforced with a durable plastic-like material, as though the standard Blade armor has been re-designed for combat instead of just stealth. The pauldrons are also larger, more in the style of officers from the Galra Empire, and they’re decorated with small inset purple bars which Shiro recognizes to be insignias of rank. Pretok appears to be a middling officer, neither especially high up nor especially low in the Blade ranks. Although that’s a bizarre thought in and of itself -- the Blades have always operated masked and anonymous, individual cells each contributing to the whole mission but staying isolated from each other so that no one Blade could give away all their secrets if interrogated. It made for a system where every Blade was essentially on equal footing in terms of rank, except perhaps for Kolivan.

“It is an honor to meet the Paladins of Voltron,” Pretok says. “Please, if you would follow me, I will take you to Kolivan.”

The station feels very Galran, with long straight hallways branching off from the path Pretok leads them on, although the ambient lighting here casts everything in a violet glow, which is much easier on the eyes than the wine-colored lighting Shiro lived with when he was a Galra prisoner. That light more than anything else was what gave Shiro horrible flashbacks whenever they infiltrated Galra vessels in the past. Just the memory of the constant low-level migraine he suffered while in Galra custody makes his head throb all over again, so the fact that this station is not lit like a Galra ship is an intense relief.

As they walk, Shiro notices the symbol of the Blade of Marmora everywhere you would normally see the insignias of the Galra Empire - above doorways and intersections where halls meet, like the Blade has emblazoned their mark everywhere you might change your path, so you never forget whose base you are aboard.

Behind him, Shiro can hear Lance ask Allura,

“What was that - what she said? It wasn't vrepit sa, but it sounded like it, kinda.”

“Vedet sa,” Allura answers, keeping her voice low so their guide doesn't hear. “It must be a Blade motto, though not one I’ve heard them exchange before. Where the Galra Empire says 'vrepit sa,’ meaning something like 'for vigilance’ or perhaps 'with vigilance,’ vedet sa is...it’s more like 'for knowledge.’ Likely a direct descendant of their mantra 'knowledge or death,’ I imagine.”

“Huh,” Lance says. “That's - that's - very Galran of them.”

“Kinda creepy,” Pidge mutters.

Allura makes a noise that's not _quite_ agreement, but isn't really disagreement, either.

They begin to pass more and more people the further they progress into the station. Most of the people are unmasked, and many are not even Galran, but members of the races which have joined the Voltron Coalition - humanoid Puigians, grub-like Taujeerians, insectoid Olkari, even a handful of Balmerans. Those who are Galran wear the combat-modified Blade armor that Pretok does, or civilian clothing. There are children among them.

Murmurs pass amongst the crowds as the Paladins are recognized.

“Voltron,” someone says.

A few intersections later, another voice calls out, “Voltron has returned.”

“Voltron?” 

“Voltron.” “Voltron!”

“Paladins!” a Balmeran cries, pushing through the gathering crowd in a side hall to see them better. Hunk waves.

“Voltron,” a Galran child whispers in awe, as their mother picks them up and settles them against a hip.

“This way,” Pretok says, leading them to a doorway which is flanked on either side by masked and armored Blades. The door whooshes open at their approach. Pretok steps aside, looking back down the hall at the onlookers, who have stopped a respectful distance away but watch on eagerly, avidly. “It is good you have returned,” Pretok says, watching them. She looks back to the Paladins, and salutes once more as Shiro’s team passes her, the guards beside her doing the same.

Inside, they find what must be a control room. 

There’s a large, circular console in the center, holographically projecting color-coded star charts over top of it. The systems on display are either purple or yellow in color, and the symbol of the Blade of Marmora appears here and there on small black bases and moons scattered throughout both the yellow and the purple systems. On the outskirts, a handful of systems clustered close together are red. It looks, Shiro thinks, like the space version of a war table.

Floor to ceiling observation windows line the far wall, offering a breathtaking view of the neighboring gas giant with its perpetually shifting clouds of ammonia crystals, like rust-colored striations in a glittering opal. There’s a bank of control panels framed against the windows, and to the left, a catwalk leads up to a mezzanine that circles around the rest of the room, stopping just shy of the windows. There are Galra everywhere, some wearing headsets and directing the base’s traffic from the bank of monitors on the main floor, some scanning displays on the second level, others simply moving around the room from station to station with purpose. They’re all wearing the modified Blade armor, and they’re all masked.

Except, that is, for the two figures standing in front of the war table. Keith stands to Kolivan’s left, nearly as tall as Kolivan himself now. They are a peculiar mirror image of each other -- Kolivan with his gray braid, Keith with his black, both unmasked. Keith’s armor has been hidden under a wrap very like the tunic Kolivan has always worn over his armor, except that Keith’s is trimmed in red instead of gray. 

Well, Shiro thinks, remembering the word _general_ , that answers the long-standing question about whether or not Kolivan’s slight variation in outfit was meant to distinguish him as the leader.

Kolivan crosses his arms over his chest and Keith tucks his (massive) hands behind his back as the Paladins approach. They share a look, wearing equally unreadable expressions.

“Paladins of Voltron,” Kolivan says, inclining his head.

“Kolivan,” Shiro says, his gaze straying past Kolivan to Keith.

There is, Shiro notes, a distinctly visible outline of clavicle and sternum and well-pronounced _pectorals_ under the first skin-tight layer of Keith’s armor. 

Shiro feels a little faint.

“Thank you for the invitation to your -- base,” Allura says, while Shiro is distracted. “We are always happy to meet with our allies and friends.”

“They don’t look that friendly right now,” Lance mutters, behind her.

“You have questions,” Kolivan says, matter-of-fact.

“Yeah, I’ve got questions!” Lance says, throwing his hands in the air and stepping forward. “Like, how is Keith so tall now?” He jabs a finger at Keith. “Why does _he_ get to be tall? 

“Lance,” Shiro warns.

“What in quiznak is going on here??” Lance sputters, getting close enough to Keith that he could reach out and prod at him, and a Blade who has been up till this point standing guard calmly against the wall to Keith’s left stiffens and reaches for the blade sheathed on his hip. Lance doesn’t notice, but Keith does.

“Strazar,” Keith admonishes. He holds up a hand to the guard and shakes his head. The guard subsides, letting his hand fall to his side again, although he keeps the eyeholes of his mask turned in Lance’s direction.

Lance stares at the guard, then at Keith, open-mouthed.

Keith shrugs.

Lance slinks back behind Allura, and Pidge socks him in the arm.

“Lance,” they hiss.

There's a curve to Keith's lip now that wasn't there before, a one-sided smirk that is all too fleeting before Keith may as well be wearing his mask again for all Shiro can read him.

“We have been... caught, in the Zanka system,” Allura begins. “We suspect we may have been a victim of the time dilation surrounding that system’s black hole. Unfortunately, as we've only just managed to portal away from said black hole, we’re all a little uncertain about the details.”

Kolivan nods.

“Voltron has been absent from the universe for a matter of deca-phoebs,” he says. “We discovered your location in the Zanka system about four deca-phoebs ago, but were unable to aid in extracting your Lions from the pull of the black hole without falling prey to it ourselves.”

“Four deca-phoebs ago?” Pidge says, aghast. “Shit, _Matt_.”

“That's like, four years, right?” Hunk says. “It’s been _four years_?”

“Since Voltron was first re-discovered,” Kolivan confirms.

“Wait…” Shiro says. “How long did it take you to find us in the first place? How long have we _actually_ been gone?”

“About seven deca-phoe--” Kolivan begins to say.

“Six years and 237 days,” Keith interrupts, the statement brusque and factual at first, but then he repeats, “You’ve been gone _six years and 237 days_ , Shiro,” and his voice goes raspy with emotion, the impassive expression on his face slowly beginning to fracture. Kolivan puts a hand on Keith’s shoulder.

Shiro's weight buckles. He takes an unsteady step back, staring.

“K-keith?” he whispers, but he’s not sure if Keith can even hear him over the outbursts that this revelation provokes.

“Six, no, almost _seven_ years?!”

“How the _fuck_ could that happen without us noticing?”

“Coran, did you know about this??”

“No, Princess. By my calculations, only about three deca-phoebs passed while I was in and out of the cryopods before you returned. The Castle ship must have also been caught within the black hole’s influence, if it’s been twice as long for the rest of the universe as it was for me.”

There’s a buzzing in Shiro’s ears. It drowns everything else. He can register the fact that his teammates are speaking, can hear the dismay in their voices, but the words they are saying have no meaning, and the speakers are impossible to tell apart. It’s all one loud mess of static in his head, and Keith is - Keith is impossibly far, a distance of six years and more days removed from Shiro, torn apart by the vastness of space and time and how little in this weary universe is really Shiro’s to control, and everything is - everything is - _so much_ , it’s like forgetting how to breathe, how not to fall apart in the face of a universe that takes and takes and takes and _takes_.

“Shiro,” Keith says, as from a great distance, and Shiro distantly registers the warmth of a big hand on the back of his neck, another hand a solid weight over the center of his breastplate. “Shiro,” Keith says again. Shiro blinks, tries to focus on the deep fluctuating blue-gray-violet of Keith’s eyes, hears Keith say, “Breathe for me, Takashi, in, and then out, good, that’s good. In and then out. _Good_. You’re all right. I’m right here. C’mon, _breathe_.”

“Keith,” Shiro chokes.

“Heyy, there he is,” Keith says, the hand on Shiro’s neck shifting around to cup his cheek. He wipes away some dampness on Shiro’s cheek with his thumb. “I’ve got you, Shiro.”

“Keith,” Shiro tries again. His whole body shudders. “Six years, Keith?”

“Don't--” Keith swallows hard, and it's hard to tell through the sheen in Shiro’s own eyes but Shiro thinks Keith’s eyes might be wet too. “Don't think about it just yet, baby, it's okay. I know. I know. It’s okay. I’m here.”

Shiro nods and screws his eyes shut tight. He feels Keith pull him close, gets tucked under a large arm.

“C’mere,” Keith murmurs, voice a low hum against the shell of Shiro’s ear. He guides Shiro...somewhere, sits him down with his back against something solid enough to be a wall, pulls Shiro flush against his side and just -- holds him.

Shiro turns into him, buries his face in center of Keith’s too-broad new chest, and curls up his knees. There are too many layers over Keith’s skin -- under-armor, breastplate, tunic -- and Shiro can’t hear Keith’s heartbeat through it all, but he can feel the rise and fall of Keith’s chest under his ear, can hear Keith’s voice rumbling words of reassurance, even still, and the voice is still deeper than it should be, than it was, but it’s still Keith, and that’s all that matters.

“Should’ve known better than to spring it on you like that,” Keith says regretfully. He strokes a hand over the crown of Shiro’s head and down the back of his neck rhythmically. 

“Sorry, Shiro. I forgot -- well. I’m sorry. Stay here with me awhile, okay?”

Shiro nods into his chest.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A quick chapter update before we all die from Season 6. You'll start to see some flashbacks now from the years that Keith was alone, while Voltron was stuck; this is the first of those. Set immediately after the Bloodlines episode from Season 5.

**6 Years and 237 Earth Days Ago**

Keith stalks down the loading ramp of his pilfered Galra fighter as soon as he’s set down the ship at the base and killed its engine, his fists clenched at his sides.

“Where is Kolivan?” he demands of the first person to cross his path, a mechanic two ships down elbow deep in an engine. The Blade looks up from his task and sputters in surprise and confusion.

“I -- I -- what? Kolivan?”

Keith waves him off and strides out of the hangar.

“Keith,” Krolia calls, hurrying into the hall after him. “Keith, what are you--”

“He _knew_ ,” Keith growls. “He knew you were my,” the word trips on his tongue, and he has to force it out, “my mother, and he _made sure_ to remind me the mission was the only thing that mattered, told me not to ‘let my emotions cloud my judgement.’”

A muscle under Keith’s eye twitches. He grinds his teeth together.

“That sounds like Kolivan,” Krolia says, amused, as she keeps up with Keith’s furious pace through the halls. She doesn’t try to stop him.

Keith flicks a glance at her.

“This doesn’t bother you?” he demands.

Krolia shrugs.

“When it comes to Kolivan, a reminder that the mission takes top priority is basically an admonishment to be safe,” she says.

Keith stares at her, eyes narrowing. He’s not sure he buys that, but it does make a bizarre kind of sense. It’s not like Kolivan hasn’t reminded him time and again to get a better leash on his emotions, but the reminder before this mission had felt particularly heavy-handed. Like Kolivan knew it would be more emotional than usual for him and was trying to prepare him, albeit without actually telling him anything _useful_ about why his emotions might run high.

“He knew,” Keith realizes, again. “He knew who you were this whole time, and he never said anything to me.”

Krolia stops walking and puts a hand on Keith’s forearm to draw him to a stop as well. She guides him out of the immediate walkway as a group of six or seven masked Blades approach.

“Krolia!” The biggest one, nearly as tall as Antok, says. “Welcome back.”

“Looks like you’re still not dead, human,” another says, the words gruff but not unkind. Keith could probably place their voices and therefore their names if his brain wasn’t short-circuiting at the firm grip of another hand -- _his mother’s hand_ \-- on his arm. He can count the number of times he has been touched since he left Voltron on one hand, discounting contact made in spars or combat. Sometimes it bothers him, when he remembers the casual way his Voltron teammates touch and are touched, sharing hugs and friendly punches and elbows thrown in jest. He misses that camaraderie in the dark of the night cycle, sleepless and alone in his bunk on this hidden base. Most of all, he misses the reassuring warmth of Shiro’s hand on his shoulder, always there to steady him before he can ever think to need it. 

The Blades are cold in comparison, too focused on surviving and undermining a ten thousand year old empire to spare time for pleasantries. Keith can’t begrudge them their detachment, not when it’s the only thing that has kept them alive for so long, but he can’t fully embrace their single-minded dedication to their task either. Shutting off his emotions the way Kolivan and the rest of the Blades want feels stifling, less a matter of learning self-control like Shiro wanted from him, and more learning not to feel _at all_.

Isolation, these days, is a slow constant ache behind Keith’s sternum, and while his body and mind have grown stronger under the Blade’s training every day, Keith’s loneliness has only worsened since his arrival.

But loneliness is not a new experience for Keith. 

He knows three things: Voltron does not need him. The Blade of Marmora does. And a Keith without that ache in his chest is a stranger. 

Keith doesn’t think he’d know what to do with himself if he _wasn’t_ lonely.

Krolia grins at the group, says something flippant, and waves them on ahead. Keith’s gaze drops to where her hand still rests on his vambrace.

“Keith,” Krolia says, and Keith looks up at her face. “Of course he knew. Everyone knew something had happened when I came back from Earth without a blade. Only Kolivan knew the details.” She studies him, her eyes intent on his face, mapping him out. 

Keith doesn’t know how to feel about it.

At last, she lets go of his arm and takes a step back.

“It’s not hard to see the resemblance, either,” she says, her lips quirking. “I’d be very surprised if Kolivan was the only one to figure it out.”

“So why didn’t anyone tell me?” Keith growls.

Krolia shrugs. “I’ve been undercover for a long time under Ranveig. There wasn’t a real guarantee that I’d come back. I can see why they wouldn’t tell you if they thought we might never meet.”

This only serves to anger Keith further.

“Fucking secrecy bullshit,” he mutters, and brushes past her.

They find Kolivan in the fifth-level observation room on their fourth attempt, after three different Blades direct them to try the training deck, the main control room, and then Kolivan’s private chamber.

When they enter, they find Kolivan facing away from them, looking out at the view of the blue star beyond the asteroid, his hands behind his back. He turns.

“Kolivan,” Krolia says as the door hisses shut behind them, before Keith can tear into him.

“Krolia,” Kolivan says. “Welcome home.” He looks at Keith. “Well done, Keith.”

Keith curls his lip at him and goes to take a step forwards, but Krolia’s hand on his shoulder holds him back.

“My son has some questions,” Krolia says.

There is a pause, but it’s brief.

“The reunion did not take long, I see,” Kolivan observes. His placid expression remains unchanged.

“You knew,” Keith says, less of an accusation than he meant it to be and more a statement of fact. Kolivan inclines his head. “And you didn’t _tell_ me?”

Kolivan considers this a moment. When he speaks, his voice is calm.

“I knew the blade you carried was Krolia’s. I knew you were likely her kin, given your clear Galra blood. But I did not know if we could trust you at first. You had to learn what was at stake, learn to understand the way we operate, or we risked telling you the truth only for you to rush off and go to your mother before it was time, spoiling her mission and our plans.”

Keith hates this, hates the measured and practical weight of Kolivan’s words, hates more that he is right. If Keith had known his mother was alive, and worse, potentially in danger, would he have been able to stop himself from going to her side to see for himself? He knows how important their mission is, knew it even in his first days with the Blade, but still, he doesn’t know if he could have resisted that temptation.

Keith hugs his arms around his middle, and Krolia’s hand moves to grip the back of his neck. She shifts closer to his side, but she’s not watching him fall apart. She’s watching Kolivan -- closely, dangerously.

“You didn’t even tell me my mother was _alive_ ,” Keith says, and the word mother comes easier to hm now, but the sentence still makes him choke.

Kolivan frowns.

“I entrusted you with Krolia’s extraction because I knew you could be trusted to carry it out, and because I knew when you learned the truth you would want it to have been you,” Kolivan says. “If I had told you before the mission, your mind would not have been clear, and your lives would have both been in peril.”

“So you ordered me to rescue my -- to rescue Krolia, as some kind of reward for good behavior, but without giving me all the facts.” Keith scoffs. He shakes his head, feels Krolia’s fingers follow the twist of his neck, and can’t decide if he thinks the pressure of her hand on him is comforting or suffocating.

“Tell me you would have wanted it to be someone else, now that you know the truth, and I will admit I was wrong,” Kolivan says steadily.

Keith swallows. He can’t admit that, can’t know what would have happened if another Blade had been disarmed instead of him. Would Krolia still have surrendered and negotiated their escape, or would she have fought on, even to the end? He could have lost her before he’d ever even known she still existed.

Kolivan narrows his eyes as Keith’s thoughts play across his face. Keith closes his mouth and keeps it shut, and Kolivan nods, satisfied.

“Yeah, well,” Keith says, lifting a hand to drag the back of it across his eyes. “Jokes on you, sir, because I’m not the one who let my emotions get the better of me this time.”

Kolivan’s gaze snaps to Krolia. She drops her hand from Keith’s neck and straightens under his stare, shrugging again.

“They got the drop on us,” she says. “It was save my son or keep fighting. I chose my son.”

Kolivan looks at the dark ceiling.

“Please tell me the weapon is at least destroyed,” Kolivan says.

“Weeelll,” Krolia says. “Commander Trugg is almost certainly dead. She and her men likely left the weapon dead or dying. Probably.”

Kolivan looks at Keith. Keith shrugs.

“I told her not to surrender. And then we almost got shot out of the sky on our way out. Based on what she says, they stopped shooting because they got taken out by the beast -- the weapon that Ranveig was working on, I mean.”

Kolivan pinches the bridge of his broad nose. His communicator beeps at him.

“I am going to regret having the two of you on base at the same time,” Kolivan says, glancing down at the comms on his wrist. “I want a full report of the mission by tomorrow. You both -- get some rest, discuss whatever sentimental things you need to discuss, and be ready for a briefing in the morning. Between Lotor’s being declared Emperor, and Voltron’s explicit alliance with him, almost every mission across the board needs to be called in or re-examined. I’ll need both of you sharp for that.”

“Yes, sir,” Keith says.

“Of course,” Krolia says.

Kolivan levels them with a yellow glare, looking between them slowly and pointedly.

“Right,” Kolivan says, and strides out of the room.


	5. Chapter 5

Shiro comes back to himself slowly, registering the hard plate of Keith’s armor under his cheek first. Sound filters in next, the efficient conversations of those working the control room, footsteps as people move around the room from station to station. They haven't moved far at all, then. Shiro shifts, not raising his head from Keith’s chest, and notes that they’re seated against the wall beside the door, sheltered under the overhang of the second level. No one is paying them any attention.

Physically, Shiro’s mouth is dry, and his eyes are burning.

The fingers in his hair still, then resume scritching gently, monotonously, through the buzzed hair behind Shiro’s ears.

“Shiro?” Keith asks, softly, and Shiro feels the rasp of Keith’s voice like the drag of fingernails all up his spine. He shivers. 

Shiro wets his lips, tries to string words together to answer him, but nothing comes.

A big hand smooths Shiro’s bangs back from his forehead.

“Back with me, baby?” Keith asks, bending his head to meet Shiro’s eyes. Shiro stares into the midnight blue of Keith’s eyes, the endearment registering now that Shiro can actually breathe again (mostly). Keith said that a couple of times, didn't he?

“Baby?” Shiro questions. His voice cracks. 

Keith’s gaze sharpens at the crack, but not for the reasons Shiro wants it to because he looks away, over Shiro’s head, and says,

“Strazar, can we get some water, please?”

The guard snaps to attention.

“Yes, General,” Strazar says, bustling away.

Shiro stares at Keith's chin, the word baby bouncing around on repeat in his skull. 

_Baby, it’s okay._

_Back with me, baby?_

_Baby. Baby. **Takashi**._

“Keith,” Shiro tries again, skidding largely uncooperative fingers across Keith’s breastplate until he can reach the edge of it and hook his fingers around the hard material to tug insistently. He feels flush with petulance when Keith just tilts his chin down to look at him, unmoved except to roll his massive shoulders in a small shrug, as if _that's_ an actual answer to the reason why Keith is dropping the word baby casually into conversation, like it’s not so far over the normal lines that define their relationship it isn't funny. “ _Keith_ ,” Shiro whines.

But then Strazar is back, carrying a good-sized rectangular box with a straw sticking out of it that doesn't resemble a glass of water so much as a juice box on steroids. It has, absurdly, the Blade of Marmora symbol emblazoned on the side.

Strazar holds the box out and Keith takes it before Shiro can, nodding his thanks to the guard. Sitting back against the wall, Keith tugs and pulls at Shiro’s shoulders to rearrange Shiro from slumped against and half on top of Keith to propped up shoulder to shoulder beside him. He does this with an ease that borders on manhandling, really, which makes Shiro's mouth feel even more dry than it already is. Finally, _finally_ , apparently satisfied with the arrangement, Keith holds the box out, straw aimed at Shiro’s mouth, for him to drink.

Shiro tries to take the box, but Keith doesn't let it go, so Shiro gives up and closes his lips around the straw and sucks.

It is water, actually, and the box appears to be made of metal, which makes Shiro think it's not a temporary drinking container at all, but a permanent one. Just one...fashioned to look like a very large juice box. A Blade of Marmora juice box.

Okay, then.

Keith pets Shiro's hair some more while he drinks, and Shiro thinks this should feel patronizing, but it’s actually super soothing.

“Better?” Keith asks, when Shiro stops and leans sideways to drop his head against Keith's shoulder.

“Mm,” Shiro says. Keith's hand moves away from Shiro’s hair, and he settles his arm across Shiro's shoulders instead.

They sit like that for a while, Shiro taking small sips of water and just breathing, trying not to think about lost time or the round weight of grief for it in his chest. It's easier than he would have expected, with Keith a solid presence against his side, propping Shiro up, and Keith's arm around him, keeping Shiro safe and close.

“Where are the others?” Shiro asks, eventually, because the only people left in the control room are Blades.

“Pretok took them to show them to the guest quarters,” Keith says. “You all need some rest.”

“Hmm,” Shiro murmurs, noncommittal, because if he thinks about resting he thinks about the passing of time, and that's a dangerous train of thought.

“Shiro,” Keith nudges him like he knows Shiro is trying to avoid the topic. “When’s the last time you slept?”

Shiro shudders and looks away.

“I don't know,” he says quietly. “Felt like - felt like it only took a few minutes to get to each group of Lions, but I was the closest to the black hole, and Pidge said it was a few hours waiting for me, and then Allura said three _days_ ; I don't - I don't know, Keith. Between wormholing to the Zanka system, the fight with that cruiser, getting out of the Zanka system, the fight on the moon base - it’s gotta have been at least a day. Or, you know, _six years_ , I guess.” It’s a fight to keep the hysteria from his voice, at the end.

Shiro fists a hand in his hair and grips tight, hoping the slight burn in his scalp will help ground him. But Keith reaches up and pulls Shiro’s hand gently from his hair, cradling Shiro’s hand in his own once Shiro lets go and carefully unclenching Shiro’s fingers one at a time.

“You _need_ to rest,” Keith says seriously.

Shiro looks at him, but he can't hold Keith’s gaze. It's sure and calm and steady and all the things Shiro isn't right now. He drops his eyes to their hands. 

“Okay,” Shiro says.

Keith nods, decisive. He lets go of Shiro and unfolds himself from the ground with easy grace -- a grace more pronounced now, with Keith’s larger size, than it was when he was younger. The motion is panther-like, Keith dressed in the dark armor of the Blade, and Shiro is too busy staring at the curve of Keith’s body under that armor to notice immediately that Keith has extended his hand to help Shiro to his feet.

When he does notice, Shiro starts and scrambles upright with a murmured apology, his hand gripped tight around the black of Keith’s glove.

Keith doesn't say anything.

Keith just... smirks.

And Shiro is all dry-mouthed and clumsy with the shakiness that comes after a rush of so much panic-induced adrenaline, tripping over his boots as Keith heaves Shiro, effortlessly, to his feet. Keith has to steady him again, but he doesn't say anything about it, doesn't tease, just presses a large hand to the small of Shiro’s back and braces his feet so that he doesn't budge when Shiro unbalances and knocks into Keith's chest. 

“Sorry,” Shiro mumbles again, looking awkwardly at Keith’s breastplate because to make eye contact is to look up, and up, past Keith’s broad shoulders to the braid of dark hair over his shoulder to Keith’s space-dark eyes. Acknowledging that new height difference is liable to knock Shiro right back on his ass again, and not just because he’s a little bit dizzy.

There is a pause. Shiro can feel the weight of Keith’s stare on his face.

“This way,” Keith says finally, with that deeper voice, nudging Shiro gently toward the door.

He doesn't move his hand from Shiro’s back, just falls in to walk beside Shiro. It’s not that Keith has his arm around Shiro’s waist, but Shiro knows that it will probably become an arm around Shiro’s waist if Shiro stumbles again, with the same certainty that he knows the timbre of Keith's laugh and the striations of lighter blue in Keith’s eyes, or that Keith’s promise to save him as many times as it takes is the most unchanging fact in every corner of the universe Shiro has seen so far.

It’s easy to be certain where you stand with Keith.

Keith doesn’t move his hand during the walk from the control room to the living quarters, leaves it there through long hallways that all look largely the same, a steady pressure Shiro wants to believe is warm against him even if he can’t feel it through his Paladin armor. 

They pass through a large set of doors which open when Keith presses his hand to a sensor on the wall. The wing of the base beyond them is warmer than the rest of the halls, still bathed in that blue-violet light the Blade seems to prefer, but there are a few foreign looking flora in corners here, like bizarre house plants left to cheer the cold halls up. Long swathes of fabric have been hung from the walls and the ceilings in warm yellows and mellow blues, and an open doorway just inside the wing seems to lead to a lounge of some sort, with comfortable seating recessed into the walls and floors, and a long bar along one wall for the serving of refreshments.

Keith leads him past the lounge and down a hall with only the occasional door, each one painted a different color from the rest in a color scheme Shiro can’t make coherent, and each numbered. Not quite to the end of the hall, Keith stops at the door labelled 9.02. He presses his hand to the sensor by the door again and it opens.

The chamber beyond is larger than the Paladins’ quarters on the Castle ship. There’s a low, comfortable couch in the middle of the room, a similarly low table set in front of it with what looks like some kind of alien board game. One wall has a collection of wicked-looking blades displayed carefully, and there’s a double-wide bunk built into the wall opposite the blades. A large porthole window gives a view of the gas giant outside the station.

Keith steps away from Shiro as the door hisses shut behind them. He reaches behind his back to unbelt the blade there, and he sets the whole, blade and scabbard, down on the shelf built in behind the head of the bed. Shiro follows him into the quarters more slowly, looking around. 

The room is largely bare. It doesn’t appear to have been painted any particular color besides the cool metal that the base itself is built out of, and no frills or decorations adorn the walls aside from the hung knives and swords, perhaps half a dozen of them of varying non-Terran make. The ambient lighting is warmer than that of the rest of the base, closer to the yellow tones that earth homes are lit with.

Keith turns away from the bed, towards a compartment housed in the wall beside it. He presses a button that Shiro can't see and the wall slides aside, revealing shelves of clothing. 

Shiro drifts closer to Keith, close enough to inspect the bed’s black bedding, made up neatly with military precision. At odds with this tidiness is the shelf behind the pillows, where a handful of photographs have been tacked up above the blade Keith just set down. One features Keith and a Galra woman with a sharply defined chin. Her arm is slung casually around Keith’s shoulders, and they're both giving the same wry grin to the camera. The rest, to Shiro’s surprise, are pictures of Voltron -- promotional materials, really. There’s a staged photo of the Paladins dressed up for those arena performances during the recruitment tour with Bii-Boh-Bi. One photo has the Paladins intermingled with celebrating Olkari right after their first mission on that planet, Keith in the armor of the Red Paladin. A picture of Keith, Lance, Pidge, Hunk, and Allura shows them posing with a group of young Puigians. And a photo of the whole group, including Coran, posed in front of the Castle of Lions. Shiro vaguely remembers taking that one because a news outlet allied with the Voltron Coalition requested a group photo.

There is also a small poster from that coalition recruitment tour that features just Shiro, looking stern and leaderly, his face in profile. The caption reads “Black Paladin Takashi Shirogane: Shiro The Hero.”

Shiro chokes on air.

Keith turns around, a grey tank top and loose black lounge pants folded and stacked in his hands.

“Shiro?” His voice is rough with concern.

“These, uh,” Shiro coughs. “These aren't guest quarters, Keith.”

“No,” Keith agrees, like Shiro has stated the obvious, which he _has_ , but Keith doesn’t seem to see the problem implicit in that statement, because he says, “Here,” and wiggles the clothes in his hands at Shiro. “These’ll be a little loose on you, but they’ll fit.”

Shiro takes the clothes from him automatically, then hesitates when he realizes what he’s doing.

“Keith…”

“Shiro.” Keith curls his hands over Shiro’s on the clothes, a warm dry grip that kind of dwarfs Shiro’s own. “You need to rest. And you shouldn’t be alone right now. Stay with me.” He softens. “Please.”

“Okay,” Shiro whispers. “Yeah, of course. Thanks.”

Keith squeezes his hands and turns back to the shelves, pulling out some clothes for himself before he closes the panel and opens another one. This one has an empty armor stand, and a couple of shelves with extra armor components -- a replacement vambrace, half of a broken breastplate, a second pair of gloves. Keith shuffles the components closer together, clearing a full shelf. 

“You can put your armor here,” Keith says, stepping aside to give Shiro room to reach around him. He reaches for the release on his breastplate and starts carefully shucking off his Blade armor and arranging it on its stand.

Shiro watches him for a moment, watches the reinforced bits of armor being carefully stripped away to leave only Keith’s skin-tight layer of clothes underneath. It doesn’t leave much to the imagination. And then Keith peels off the undershirt and turns away to stuff it in a chute in the wall.

The slope of Keith’s shoulders is a work of goddamn art. Shiro traces the dips and lines of muscle in Keith’s well-muscled back with his eyes, stares hungrily at the divot at the small of his back, just above his waistline. There’s a large blue-black tattoo in the center of Keith’s back that wasn’t there before -- the sigil of the Blade of Marmora. 

Shiro winces. It’s a reminder, hard and fast like a jab to his solar plexus, that Keith isn’t the Red Paladin anymore, that he’s part of another team, a team that has been Keith’s _only_ team for six years while Shiro and the rest of Voltron have been off stuck in the gravitational pull of a damned black hole. Shiro doesn’t really know this Keith, with his too-deep voice and his big hands and the title _General_. Six years - seven years - it’s a long time, longer than Shiro has ever left Keith before.

Keith turns back, reaching for the black shirt he had set out for himself on the shelf above the one given to Shiro, and Shiro takes an unsteady step back. But the self-flagellation in his head stops short when he sees that Keith has another tattoo on his chest. This one begins near each of his collarbones and slopes down over his pectorals. It’s the Voltron V, the same symbol that Shiro and the rest of the Paladins wear across their own chests on their armor, the same symbol emblazoned across the chest of the Black Lion and therefore Voltron itself. Keith’s tattoo isn’t a single color, but blocks of connected color - black and red, blue and green, yellow and pink.

“You’re staring,” Keith says, quietly.

Shiro drags his gaze up from Keith’s tattoo to his face and offers an uncertain smile.

“Um,” Shiro swallows. “You -- have tattoos?”

Keith looks down. “Oh. Yeah.” He shrugs his shoulders, taps his fingers in no particular rhythm over the black and red sections tattooed over his left pec. “Got this one when we finally found you guys.”

“Yeah?” Shiro has to look away. He busies himself with taking off his Paladin armor.

“I needed to do something,” Keith says. “And Kolivan -- everyone -- needed me to not be a dumbass and go hurtling myself into that system after you. I would have just got stuck too, and maybe I wanted -- but I was the last Paladin of Voltron left standing, and the Coalition needed leaders. The Blade needed leaders. Everything was changing, with Lotor as Emperor and the Galra civil war. I didn’t have the luxury of stepping away from it all for a while. I think Kolivan would have thrown me in the brig if I’d tried. So I -- got a tattoo instead. A reminder.”

“What kind of reminder?” Shiro asks, kicking off his boots and pulling his pants down over his hips.

Keith takes a moment to answer, and when Shiro looks up, he’s watching Shiro undress intently, this look in his eyes that Shiro can’t quite parse. Shiro flushes, and fumbles for the lounge pants Keith gave him.

“That you were coming back, I guess,” Keith says finally. “Voltron wasn’t gone, just -- stuck for a while. I wasn’t going to be the lone Voltron Paladin forever.”

Shiro has to cinch the drawstrings on the pants as tight as they will go to get them to stay up on his hips. He pulls the tank top over his head. When he looks at Keith, Keith is pulling a pair of lounge pants of his own over his hips, his body angled sideways and away from Shiro.

“I’m sorry you were alone for so long,” Shiro says, when Keith looks back at him.

Keith smiles faintly, steps in close.

“Well, I wasn’t totally alone,” Keith says. “Um, actually.” He closes up the armor compartment and goes to sit on the bed, pulling the photo of him and the Galra woman off the wall and holding it out to Shiro. “I met my mom.”

Shiro drops heavily onto the bed beside him.

“Your _mom_?” He takes the picture carefully and stares at it. Now that he’s looking, he can see the similarities there, in the shape of her chin and the way Keith’s eyes look violet, like hers, in certain light. Their noses are almost the same, too. And then there’s the purple Galra facemark on Keith’s face, matching hers in position and color.

“Yeah,” Keith says. “Her name’s Krolia. I’ll introduce you tomorrow.”

“I’m so happy for you, Keith,” Shiro says. Keith hums, a tiny smile on his lips. He knocks their shoulders together.

“So, is this…” Shiro points to the facemark on the Keith in the photo.

“Just a latent part of my Galra side, I guess,” Keith says. “It showed up when I got my first big growth spurt. Galra live longer than humans, even the ones that aren’t jacked up on Quintessence like Zarkon. My mom says I just got kind of a second puberty. A Galran one. And Dravnik -- that’s one of our medical officers -- she thinks the fact that I was exposed to raw quintessence in that druid facility unlocked more of the Galra potential in my genes. Which is why I’m taller than most humans now and I’ve got Mom’s facemark, which would have showed up when I was born if I was full Galra.”

“That’s...unexpected,” Shiro says.

“I’ve had time to get used to it,” Keith says. He rubs the mark on his cheek. “It’s probably pretty weird to you, huh? God.” He flops back on the bed and folds his arms behind his head, t-shirt riding up to expose a strip of his hard stomach. “I was _nineteen_ last time you saw me. Shit.” He laughs.

Shiro reaches over him to gently set the photo down on the shelf. Next to Keith’s blade is a printed earth calendar that Shiro didn’t notice before. It’s opened to November, with the first ten days crossed out.

“How, um.” Shiro pulls back and stretches out slowly on his side, facing Keith with his elbow on the bed and his cheek propped up on his hand. Both his feet and Keith’s dangle off the edge of the bed, since they’re laid out sideways on it. “How old are you now?”

“Twenty-six,” Keith answers, “in Earth years. Same as you were when you disappeared.” He turns his head, cheek resting against the bedspread, and looks at Shiro thoughtfully. “Same as you in general, I guess. It’s not like you aged in what was only a day for you.”

Twenty-six. Of course he's twenty-six; that's how math _works_ , but god, god, it's so long. Shiro has been gone _so long_ this time. He covers his face with a hand and rolls away to face the other wall, sucks in a shuddering breath.

“Fuck,” he whispers, wetly, into his hand. “Fuck!” he says, louder, his breath coming heavier.

The bed dips, and then Keith is a warm weight against his back. He reaches around Shiro and pulls Shiro’s hand down from his face, intertwining their fingers.

“Hey,” Keith says, and Shiro can feel the deep rumble of his voice in Keith’s chest, where it’s pressed solidly against Shiro’s back. “It’s not the end of the world, baby. You came back just in time for me to be the same age as you now, not any older than you. Anyways, probably--” Keith swallows audibly. “Probably I’m gonna live longer than you will. So it’s fine.”

Okay, Shiro is definitely _not_ thinking about the last part of that statement. Still... 

“How are you so okay with this?” he groans. “The Kerberos mission was supposed to be a little over a year. But it was months in space and then a year in captivity and then a second time in Galra custody and now, more than six years, Keith? It’s like--” he grips Keith’s hand hard and tries not to sound as needy, as selfish, as he feels. “Like the universe just keeps taking me away from you.”

Keith doesn’t answer right away; he hooks his chin over Shiro’s shoulder, and Shiro can’t breathe because the honesty in what he just said threatens to split him open. It’s too personal, too specific, not _I keep losing time_ or _I keep getting ripped away from places and people I want to be near_ , but _I keep getting taken away from_ you.

He may as well have just shouted ‘hey Keith I’m in love with you,’ for fuck’s sake. 

No one should ever let Shiro into his best friend’s room when Shiro is punch-drunk from a lingering panic attack, especially when said best friend and the love of Shiro’s life is suddenly giving him a boyfriend shirt to wear and has gotten an alien growth spurt to look even more like something out of Shiro’s wet dreams than usual.

“I had a lot of time to get used to it,” Keith says finally. “It gives you perspective, I guess. I wouldn’t have been okay if I hadn’t known you were coming back. I was actually really messed up before we found out where Voltron had disappeared to. But when we did find you, and I knew it was just a matter of waiting you out, it got better.”

Shiro sighs, hating that Keith has had to make the most of any of Shiro’s absences, that he’s needed perspective to get through more than half a decade with Shiro gone.

“I will always wait for you, Shiro,” Keith says, solemn and sincere, and the words have the same weight as the promise Keith made to be there when Shiro got back from Kerberos. Shiro stills, the depth of that promise unraveling the tension sitting in his shoulders. He sags in Keith’s hold.

“I’m sorry you keep having to,” Shiro whispers.

Keith smiles; Shiro can feel his jaw shifting against Shiro’s shoulder. 

“I’m just glad you’re back now,” Keith whispers back.

They’re quiet for a while, until Keith says, “Here,” and tugs at Shiro until he follows Keith’s lead and shifts around on the bed to lay the correct direction. Keith tugs the blanket out from underneath them and settles it over them both, and then Shiro thinks Keith will perhaps put some distance between them now that they’ve got their heads on separate pillows. But Keith just reaches up to fiddle with a control by his photographs until the room’s lights dim to night cycle. He pulls the hair tie at the bottom of his braid off and drops it on the shelf, combing his fingers through his hair to unbraid it. And when he slides back down under the covers, he slots himself against Shiro’s back again like he belongs there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so I am so sorry about the long delay between chapters - I kept poking at this one for weeks between getting smacked in the face with feels about season 6 and season 7 spoilers. I am also a little busier now that summer is in full swing, so updates will probably continue to be more infrequent than the once a week that we started out with. However! This chapter is a bit longer than all the others, to reward your patience.
> 
> if anybody has any preferences for flashbacks they'd like to see of what Keith was doing while Shiro was stuck in time, please leave me a comment! I have ideas, but Keith gives a quick summary of several of those ideas to Shiro in this chapter, so things are more up in the air now.
> 
> thank you all for reading and for all the love this fic has gotten so far <3


	6. Chapter 6

Keith’s bed is very comfortable -- not especially soft, but that’s good. Shiro has had a hard time sleeping on anything too soft since he escaped Galra custody the first time. And Keith’s bulk at Shiro’s back, even if it is bigger than Shiro’s used to, is a reassuring weight behind him.

Still, Shiro dozes fitfully. He’s not used to sharing a bed with anyone else, let alone spooning with them. And that is what they are doing, spooning, even if Shiro is reluctant to apply the word to something so -- so -- well, to something that he’s doing with Keith. There are implications to wearing Keith’s clothes and sleeping in Keith’s bed with Keith wrapped tight around him, and Shiro is trying hard not to think about those implications. Keith just wanted to take care of him, Shiro reminds himself. None of this has to mean anything beyond that Keith is a very good friend.

There’s an ache in Shiro’s lower back from laying for too long in this position, though.

He frowns, reluctant to move and risk disturbing Keith, who fell asleep with an ease that Shiro envies and even now seems to be sleeping soundly.

Shiro sighs as quietly as he dares. He wiggles his hips, tries to turn over a bit more onto his stomach so that he’s more comfortable.

Keith follows, draping himself more solidly over Shiro’s back.

 _You’re such a limpet_ , Shiro thinks, smiling to himself. He hadn’t expected Keith to be so cuddly in bed. 

...Not that he’s imagined himself in bed with Keith before. Not at all.

Time passes. Shiro dozes a while, wakes up to roll over in Keith’s arms so that he’s lying on his other side and facing Keith. Keith’s brows slope down in displeasure as Shiro shifts around, but expression smoothes out when Shiro stops moving and Keith can press close to him again. Shiro finds his face smushed against Keith’s neck, Keith’s long hair tickling against Shiro’s cheek. Shiro swipes it away, then marvels at how soft it is, and has to restrain himself from reaching his fingers into Keith’s hair to feel that silk-soft texture against his fingers again.

His sleepy brain catches on a loop of how soft Keith’s hair is and how long it is now and how good it looks splayed around his shoulders while Keith sleeps only to start musing over again with how soft Keith’s hair is and how it looks good long, and eventually Shiro must doze off again mid-thought.

He wakes again when Keith says, hoarsely, “Shiro.”

“Mm. Keith?” Shiro slurs, cracking his eyes open to find his cheek on the bed instead of against Keith’s shoulder, Keith a foot away on the bed, one hand curled into the blankets in the space between them like he’s reaching out for something.

Shiro rubs his eyes and curls an arm under his head to prop himself up slightly.

Keith’s eyes are closed, but his face is scrunched up, and as Shiro watches, a tremor wracks Keith’s whole body. His eyes move under his eyelids.

Dreaming, then.

Shiro reaches for Keith’s hand, and Keith startles as Shiro grasps it, but he still doesn’t wake.

Actually, he whimpers.

Shiro frowns, scooting across the space between them and brushing back some of Keith’s hair from his face. He presses a kiss to Keith’s forehead.

“‘kashi,” Keith mumbles, tugging his hand free to grab a handful of Shiro’s tanktop.

“Yeah,” Shiro whispers. “I’m right here, Keith.” He cups Keith’s cheek. “Doesn’t seem like a good dream you’re having, you know. Maybe I should wake you up?”

Keith sighs, nuzzling into Shiro’s hand. He sags against the bed, loosening his death-grip on Shiro’s top.

“Or maybe you just need me to talk to you a little bit,” Shiro says, his lips twitching. He rubs his thumb over Keith’s cheek, along the mark there. It’s indented slightly, like a stretch mark. “Dream about me often, huh? You know that’s liable to go to a man’s head, Keith.”

Keith makes a snuffling sound.

“You’re cute,” Shiro tells him sincerely, since Keith is definitely still asleep. He scoots down so he can use Keith’s chest as a pillow. “‘m still gonna be here when you wake up, so no more bad dreams for you. Okay?”

Shiro doesn’t stay awake long enough to hear that Keith never replies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A super short chapter for you all! Originally this was just supposed to be the first section of a longer chapter (I've had this part mostly written for a while) but I've decided to divide them up just for the sake of giving you guys a long-awaited & obligatory bed-sharing update.
> 
> A couple other notes:  
> \- I've gone back and updated the verbiage for Altean measurements of time to align with the Paladin's Handbook. Thanks to everyone who weighed in with their headcanons about Altean terminology!  
> \- I've also made some minor edits to the rest of the previous chapters, including a small addition to chapter 1 to flesh out Shiro's headspace there.
> 
> I have some time off this week, and I'm actively working on the next chapters for all of my sheith WIPs, so I hope to have a second update for this fic for you within the next several days. (Next up: a wild Lotor appears!) As always, thanks for reading <3

**Author's Note:**

> Come yell with me about tol Keith [on twitter](https://www.twitter.com/cryofseagulls).


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